Suzanne calls Michael Chernew, PhD, director of the Healthcare Markets and Regulation (HMR) Lab in the Department of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School. They discuss his December 2019 publication in NEJM Catalyst, “How Different Payment Models Support (or Undermine) a Sustainable Health Care System: Rating the Underlying Incentives and Building a Better Model,” co-authored with Jermaine Heath, AB. The article examines the theory and evidence of fee-for-service, episode-based payments, and population-based payments, and makes recommendations around which payment models can create better incentives. Listen in to get into the weeds on how payment reform works while also staying grounded in a fundamental truth: we can’t expect any Alternative Payment Model (APM) to be successful if the model isn’t sustainable for those who deliver care.
Want to hear more from Michael Chernew? Check out an episode from 2018 where he and Suzanne discuss what purchasers need in order to evaluate their own health care purchasing strategies.